I just got this email:
Hi Jonah,
I am fairly new to politics: I only really started
paying attention during the last election because
there was so much at stake. This email is a cry for
help- now that I am an NRO junkie I need help with all
the technical terms like “Borking” and what volcano
lancing lasers are for- is it a metaphor or are we
talking actual volcano lancing? Now I know I’m
incredibly ignorant- but I can’t be the only one who
could use some details. How about this: You could put
up a sort of glossary on NRO of all the vital things a
good conservative should know. We need Ramesh to
explain the tricky bits, the Derb to explain what he
said, and you to keep it funny. How about it? It would
be a huge service, and a great running gag.
Me: Maybe this is crazy of me. But since I know for a fact no one at NRO wants to be assigned the job of actually writing an NRO glossay, maybe we should use a wiki to create an ongoing NRO glossary or NROpedia? I have no idea if I’m using Wiki in the absolutely correct way. But I think this could be a pretty cool innovation in web journalism and interactivity. Over time, it could evolve into a pretty useful document, with explanations of not just jokes and phrases we use around here, but whole concepts, biographies etc.
I will ponder more but I think there’s real potential here.